Name:

Manufacturing a Computer

Imagine that you have just inherited a small business from your Great Grandmother. The small
business assembles and sells two kinds of computer: Model A and Model B (the cheaper version).
Your business is capable of manufacturing a maximum of 360 computers in any given week.

The following table shows all the relevant data concerning the employees at your company:

Job Title Number of people Job description Pay Hours Worked

doing this job (per week) (per week)

Assembler 100 The job involves putting $900 36

together computers

Inspector 4 This job involves testing and $1080 35

correcting any faults in the
computers before they are sold

The next table shows all the relevant data concerning the manufacture of computers.

Model A Model B

Total assembly time in man-hours for each computer 12 6

Total inspection time in man-minutes for each computer 10 30

Component costs for each computer $720 $576

Selling price for each computer $1080 $792

At the moment, you are manufacturing and selling 100 of model A and 200 of Model B each week.

• What profit are you making at the moment?

• Can you improve this situation? Without changing your workforce, how many of each computer
should you make to maximize your profit?
• ***Can you do better by changing your workforce (hiring or laying off workers as you see
necessary)?

Focus Correction Area:

• Correct solution to the first and second bullet.

• Complete mathematics to support your solution.
• Identification of the variables you used to solve the problem.
• Work and solution organized sequentially (so that it can be read start to finish rather than scattered over a page).